Common sense & decency absent as wacko "church" allowed hate msgs spewed@ soldiers' funerals but we can't invoke God's name in public square

Leave it to Palin to confuse the 1st Amendment itself with the Establishment Clause. She's done it before, though. As Justin Elliot observes at Salon.com:

Palin's counter-argument here is that "common sense" requires that offensive protests be banned.

The former Alaska governor has a history of invoking the principle of "free speech" at odd times. Here she is in October 2008 during a radio interview:

If they convince enough voters that that is negative campaigning, for me to call Barack Obama out on his associations, then I don't know what the future of our country would be in terms of First Amendment rights and our ability to ask questions without fear of attacks by the mainstream media.

In response, Glenn Greenwald noted at the time: "The First Amendment is actually not that complicated. It can be read from start to finish in about 10 seconds. It bars the Government from abridging free speech rights. It doesn't have anything to do with whether you're free to say things without being criticized, or whether you can comment on blogs without being edited, or whether people can bar you from their private planes because they don't like what you've said."

Palin made a similar remark last year when defending Dr. Laura, who retired after she faced intense criticism for using the N-word on her radio show. Palin tweeted then:

Dr.Laura=even more powerful & effective w/out the shackles, so watch out Constitutional obstructionists. And b thankful 4 her voice,America!

Again, Palin seemed to be equating what was (in her opinion) unfair criticism as somehow an infringement on First Amendment rights. The government, of course, had no role in forcing Dr. Laura to retire following her controversial remarks.

Interestingly, the sole dissenter in this morning's decision, Justice Samuel Alito echoes part of what irks Palin in his written remarks:

Our profound national commitment to free and open debate is not a licence for the vicious verbal assault that occurred in this case.

In order to have a society in which public issues can be openly and vigorously debated, it is not necessary to allow the brutalisation of innocent victims like the petitioner.

Westboro Baptist Church sucks. Bigtime. So do skinhead anti-Semitic marches and KKK rallies. But all these objectionable acts are protected under the 1st Amendment.

Elliot concludes his article on Palin's reaction with:

Under Palin's interpretation of the First Amendment, criticism of public figures threatens free speech, but peaceful protests she doesn't like should be banned.

9 comments:

A person could go crazy trying to determine what Sarah's views are on issues. She flipflops as often as the weather changes. She's told so many opportunistic lies that she can't remember what she's supposed to believe. In Bailey's tell-all, he alleged that Sarah couldn't remember what her public stance was on sex education so Bailey had to dig up her old filled-out surveys to inform her of her beliefs. Pathetic on so many levels.

However I think everyone can agree that Sarah truly believes that making money and the news are her primary goals in life. She doesn't even need to jot those two objectives on her hand to remember them.

I'm not sure that she deserves credit for distilling this. That implies some thought processes and knowledge I see little evidence of.

Simply pick and choose a tidbit "Westboro can continue to do this" mixed with the previously held belief "support the troops" and you get the tweet.

There is no irony in the tweet, because the definition of "common sense" and "decency" as relates to ""church"" and "hate msgs spewed"are clearly understood to be everything but what she and her supporters do.

As is there no question in her mind which God is allowed to be invoked in public squares.

Palin, although admired by many of my colleagues as a "defender" or "advocate" of liberty, is just another self-serving politician hoping to ride the recent political waves to fortune.

As a liberty minded advocate of freedom, I find her mixing the 1A with her personal tastes disgusting and hypocritical.

She is exactly why the at-first-promising-Tea-and-Crumpets-party (that is becoming disturbingly Republicanized by the Dead Elephant Party), and will contribute precisely zilch to true freedom in this nation.

Dumb! Just canned words come from her mouth. She is really thoughtless set of cant expressions.

As to not being able to utter religious stuff in public square.. the only names we cannot seem to be able to say are Allah, Krishna, Buddhah. If it is the good old bajeezus... no one cares. But try putting and do a namaaz (rather than need down and cross yourself) you are in deep doo-doo. The guy who put a square on the floor to do some yoga and meditate gets arrested for "criminal tresspassing" What a free country (for few)!!